Photos of Mi-8 Military Helicopter Crash in Russia's Backyard Emerge

Photos of an Mi-8 military helicopter that crashed in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan, on Wednesday, killing one person and injuring several others, have emerged online.

The Soviet-era helicopter crashed at 10:55 a.m. local time at the Frunze-1 Air Base, Russian state-run news agency Tass reported on Wednesday, citing a statement by Kyrgyzstan's aviation agency, Kyrgyzaeronavigatsiya.

Local news agency Kabar cited Kyrgyzstan's defense ministry as saying that the helicopter belonged to the Kyrgyz military. One person was killed and a further 10 were injured in the crash, four of whom are in intensive care, the ministry said.

"The helicopter was on a training flight and made an emergency hard landing," the Kyrgyz defense ministry said in a statement.

The country's Air Defense Forces and the Ministry of Defense are working to clarify the circumstances of the incident.

Newsweek has contacted the defense ministries of Kyrgyzstan and Russia for comment by email.

Photos have been published by local media showing wreckage at the scene of the crash.

Kyrgyzstan became part of the Russian Empire in 1876 and later a constituent republic of the USSR. It attained sovereignty as a nation state after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 but there are still Russian military bases in the central Asian country.

Tass describes the Mi-8, designed in the 1960s, as a "well-known Soviet and Russian model of helicopter, and one of the most mass-produced helicopters in the world." The twin-engined aircraft, designed to transport troops, has been sold to more than 100 countries.

The last reported crash involving an Mi-8 was in August 2023, when one of the helicopters belonging to Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) came down near the village of Prudny in Russia's Chelyabinsk region, killing three people.

A spokesman for the emergency services told state-run news agency RIA Novosti at the time that the helicopter crashed "during a planned flight," and that three crew members had died.

In July 2023 an Mi-8 caught fire as it was landing in southern Siberia. Four people were killed and a further 10 were injured in the incident in Russia's Altai Republic.

Russian President Vladimir Putin visited Kyrgyzstan in October 2023, meeting with Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zhaparov and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Bishek.

Update 1/17/24, 6:32 a.m. ET: This story has been updated with additional information and an amended headline.

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